Wednesday, June 25, 2014

It has begun, as we knew it must.
One by one the aunties, uncles, mums and dads,
who only yesterday greeted us with laughs, and smiles,
are freezing as silver halide in wooden frames.

Each fortuitous photo taken at some other event,
grabbed, together with some favourite song or hymn
and reproduced in some garish font preferred by those
who do such things, becomes the last reminder, the
last awkward and inadequate full stop.

And like sheep in that last race, we greet each other.
Smiling, despite the unfamiliar hall, the friends of
friends we did not know, the children, the grandchildren, all
And discuss the weather.

What is a life?
From a million billion data points
the biographer pulls those we think we know the best.
And yet how very tedious those events become
when all the time
thinking back
each one recalls
the echoes of memory
of childhood moments
found under wraps
intangible artifacts of identity you haven't seen in years
falling like raindrops in the sun.

Monday, February 17, 2014

On the long driveway to the school -
blackberries flourish
bursting through the undergrowth
like octopus arms drooping with black, red and green fruit
ready for a fight,

But at home-time the children pass by.
In cars, or dragging bags
earnestly exchanging views on
superheroes or zombies, unicorns or pokemon
oblivious to the challenge,
contemptuous of the reward.

On this yellow autumnal Saturday, I am alone.
Grey head bent,
working alone under the cool green leaves,
pressing back the cane's defences
reaching, curling my fingers, and plucking
yes, plucking is the very word
fruit from hiding places.

The challenge of finding berries
the evasion of wicked barbs
the quiet working of the vines
as men and women did
for thousands of years.

I imagine company: naked cavemen and women gossiping softly on the cooling air
the children learning to avoid the thorns
an ear out for bears who would also be
rewarded with the purple stains of juice
on paws and mouths.

And I worry that my transaction with these plants,
this natural bargain (for plants are subtle and use us well)
today is foundering on a trade,
unnatural and perverted
where plants,
isolated in hydroponic sterility,
their thorns mutated, their berries swollen
produce flavourings selected by focus groups
of those children who never stopped
to taste a free berry as it grew.